Lady Justice is Blind, She’s Just Not Colorblind

While so many Americans remain shocked, dismayed and reeling from the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, the shock is apparently derived from our lack of foresight on the part of blacks and whites to see it coming. Who could have anticipated that a black boy could have been killed at the hands of a white man, and the white man walks. Really! We’ve seen this movie before.

But as always, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. According to research by John Roman, a senior analyst at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, white people who kill black people in ‘Stand Your Ground’ states are 354 per cent more likely to be found justified in their killing than a white person who kills another white person. He also found that whites who kill blacks in non-Stand Your Ground states are 250 percent more likely to be found justified in killing a black person than a white person who kills another white person. Roman’s bases his study in FBI data to support his conclusions.

But short of any such empirical information, past experience tells black Americans that the law and the judicial system have been at the very least shortsighted about transferring power of this magnitude –the lethal use of a weapon – in the hands of any citizen.

To add salt to the racial discrimination wound, check out more miscarriages of justice below: